Windows Cluttered files?

Well back in the day when this computer was bought , 80GB was alot of space. Dont get me wrong , its still runs strong as hell and better then some of the newer computers ive used. But anyway even after having a external HDD , C drive is running low.. now ive looked into removing as much space as i could with out very much luck.

Any ideals on what i should look into to remove unwanted thing to make some space?

Ive noticed that my C:\Windows has alot of $uninstall type files in there some of them being like 300MB .. not sure what its used for but is it removable?



Im also gonna post sizes of folders in C windows and if you guys could just glance at that and tell me if one of them is unusually big because im not sure what is the normal size.

This is all in C folders
- WINDOWS = 5GB (System32 1GB)
- Program Files = 1.2GB (CommonFiles 500MB)
- DocumentandSettings = 2.2GB

p.s Running windows XP , and its partitioned into 5 drives

 

The $Uninstall folders in the WINDOWS folder are uninstall information for all of your Windows updates, service packs, etc. If you're not having any issues with your system, they're probably safe to remove. However, once you delete those, you will not be able to uninstall any Windows updates or service packs you've installed. They're definitely a space taker if you don't need them, though!

WINDOWS contains all of your system files. I would not recommend removing anything from the WINDOWS folder (except the $uninstall folders, if you want). If you wish to remove Windows components to save space, go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and select the Add/Remove Windows Components from that dialog window.

Program Files contains all of the folders and files necessary to run all programs installed on your computer. If you don't need/want help files for certain or all programs, you can do a search within the Program Files folder for files ending in the extension "CHM" and remove those. Also, most programs have readme files in .TXT format. These don't take up hardly any space, though.

Documents and Settings contains all of your user profiles for all of the computer accounts, including the "My Documents" for every user on your computer. I would not recommend removing anything from there unless you put it there to begin with (music, movies, etc.).

If you do wish to remove programs that you don't use, be sure and use the uninstall utility for the program(s) you wish to remove, usually best done by going to Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. A lot of programs unused can take up space you wouldn't normally even think about.

I hope this gets you started on cleaning out your system of unnecessary space-taking items.

 

so all the $NtUninstallxxxxxxxxx$ can be removed but then you won't be able to install that update or fix.

So looking at the date modified of these files some are from 2007 , 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 so my comp doesnt seem to have any problems.. so it would be safe to say i can remove these without having the future need to remove an update from like 2003 and older years. Ill keep the ones from recent 2008 just incase.

 

i use CCleaner all the time , i did what u said and checked hotfix uninstaller but it came up with "0 Bytes to be removed"

 

still 0 bytes.

 

Thank you for this thread.

I inherited a "new laptop" and after restore it needed 101 updates!

UGH! now over 5 MB.

 

no problem.

But anyway since CCleaner isnt seem to be picking up the $ntUninstall do you think i can just select and delete them ?